Archives for November 2008

I've learnt to play it patiently with Duke Special. The accessible songs have their charm, but each record has at least one sleeper track that will gradually reveal its potency. From the last album, 'This Could Be My Last Day' is now the towering statement, about loss and resolve and scattershot memories. The new record is currently striking rich with 'Those Proverbs We Made In The Winter Must End'.

It's not a sexy title, but aparently the inspiration came from Oscar Wilde. I didn't catch the lyrical drift at once but now I understand that it's about changing thought patterns, about moving a way from an old manner of thinking. It's about not getting stuck in a moment that you can't get out of. I especially like the escape tunnel at the end of the song:

"If we raise our heads again
We've got a chance to mend
Those proverbs we made in the winter they must end."

Bernard Butler, of Suede and David McAlmont renown, was involved in its creation, and the song is infused with soul and a sense of perserverance. A tonic against the winter blues.

There's a lot of mithering out there in the music industry. Record sales are a bit rubbish, but there's been some consolation to the bands who had steadily hiked up the ticket prices. Now that option is in retreat as gig revenue is falling and the venues are sounding panicked.

You can read two fairly similar accounts in today's papers, firstly in The Guardian, and then in the Irish Times. Both versions of the story are rather cheerless. We're all concluding that 2009 will see a fairly severe sloughing off period, as the casual promoters, the grim venues and the lacklustre acts are retired. Ultimately it may not be the worst thing that's ever occurred.

In my trainspottery imagination the most urgent question is this: how many rock and roll songs out there mention Woolworths in the lyrics? Now that a cultural landmark is under threat, how can we chart its presence in the pop song?

The first tune that comes to mind is 'Love At The Five And Dime' by Nanci Griffith. Of course it's a vision of the convenience store, viewed through the prism of Fifties Americana, but it's a start. The opening lyrics are:

"Rita was sixteen years... hazel eyes and chestnut hair
she made the Woolworth counter shine."

I've got a feeling that the UK writers saw a more prosaic side of the story and sure enough, there's a song by The Jam called 'Saturday Girls'. It's not the best Paul Weller lyric. Oh no.

"Saturday's girls work in Tesco's and Woolworths,
Wear cheap perfume 'cause it's all they can afford."

There are many songs that deal with passion in the shopping aisles, but sadly I can't fit The Freshies and 'I'm In Love With The Girl On The Manchester Virgin Megastore Checkout Desk' into this equation, even though it's rather great. We might even make a case for Cashier No. 9. And yes, I do recall that there was a passable indie act called King Of Woolworths.

Diana Krall took a few high maintenance liberties when she revised a song that from the Marilyn Monroe songbook, 'I Can't Give you Anything But Love':

Finally though, I get the song that clinches the deal. It's a lesser known punk tune, delivered with gusto by Poly Styrene. Interestingly, she's back in action, bleating her way through a Gold Blade song called 'City Of Christmas Ghosts'. But I'm listening back to a stomper from the band's 1978 debut, 'Germ Free Adolescents'. The tune you need to hear is: 'Warrior In Woolworths':

"Warrior in Woolworths
Humble he may seem
Behind his servile innocence
He plots and he schemes."

It was the headline you didn't really want to see - Manic Street Preachers' Richey Edwards Officially Dead. There's no poetry in the line, no glamour, no defiance, just a resigned sigh after nearly 14 years of nothing. He walked off the page in February 1995, leaving his car abandoned by the Severn Bridge. I've heard many astounding conspiracies since then, I've been sent cryptic messages and I've studied his lyrics and musings for some kind of a clue. It's unlikely that the guy is still alive.

Occasionally people ask me what my dream interview would be I always answer that it would be Richey, back from the wilderness after leading some extraordinary other existence. He always had the potential to be a rock and roll Rimbaud, throwing his juvenile intensity into the aether before living that second act. Instead, the evidence may suggest that he was an unusual, intelligent artist who finally couldn't cope.

The first three albums are proof of his unruly art. The post-Richey album' Everything Must Go' is a reflection of his worsening state in the latter period. The Simon Price book will give you the awful narrative. You can read my 1994 Richey interview here, and I wrote this feature on the band as they prepared their return in 1996.

There was another sheaf of Richey's lyrics that the band said they wouldn't touch. It was from the very last period of his notebooks, and now it seems that they are being reworked as one of the strangest Manics albums ever. I can't wait to hear it

Christmas 1972 was the season of portable cassette recorders. They were the size of a cereal packet, they consumed batteries in seconds and they came complete with little plastic microphones that made every recording sound like it was conducted in a wind tunnel. No matter, myself and my cousin Dianne were there at the family get-together, showing off our audio kit and doing the same ritual that every child in the land was enacting at 2.10pm. We were holding our mics up to the television speaker and recording the Top Of The Pops special.

I can still remember bits of the lo-fidelity experience. Rod Stewart was bleating 'You Wear It Well' and The Osmonds were getting eco-conscious with 'Crazy Horses'. The music was punctuated with the sound of granny setting out the desert plates and burly uncles making comments about male musicians wearing glitter on their foreheads. Jimmy Saville was presenting with Ed Stewart and my memory persuades me that T Rex sang 'Metal Guru'. My first cassette also contained a version of Carly Simon singing 'You're So Vain'. The wow and the flutter of the erratic tape heads made a kind of dub version of the tune and I liked it plenty.

Now it seems like Top of The Pops will return to the Yule schedules. I'm happy for all the usual sentimental reasons, but I also think my kids will be interested. The format is no longer a compelling cultural event, but there's a simple cheer in parading the best sellers of the moment.

I remember my own personal thrill of interviewing the band Texas at the TOTP studios in 1989. The band's publicist had smuggled me in there without the BBC knowing, so the subterfuge was even better. And while a very young Sharon Spiteri was trying to be cool, I know she felt the immensity of it all. Why shouldn't she?

In times of duress, there's always space for some fearless rock and roll. In 1975, it was Springsteen and 'Born To Run' that lifted America out of the post-Watergate depression and the Vietnam blues. My favourite answer to economic downturns is 'Design For Life' by the Manic Street Preachers, who combined working class pride with resistance to the tectonic movements of global markets. "We are not allowed to spend," they wailed, while keeping their moral equity high.

So roll on The Gaslight Anthem, hurtling out of New Jersey, with hope in their hearts, guitars madly humming and lyrics that tranform cliches into soaring affirmations. Just what you want to hear of a Friday evening. I'll be playing more, presently.

Back in 1988, I'm working as a Press Officer for a major record label in London. I get all kinds of jobs, from organising a Robert Plant press conference to staging sensitive interviews with Miriam Makeba, an icon of South African culture, exiled from her homeland. Then the workbook is introduced to a new name: Ted Nugent.

He was a legend, even then. Celebrated as 'The Nuge' and finessed in Detroit, Michegan, he played visceral blues-metal, loaded with riffs and a stubborn attitude. 'Cat Scratch Fever' was the big hit. Nugent hated drug use, even tobacco, and when he came to town, I had to buy the fella pints of cream, which he would drink with relish. Then he would entertain young rock hacks with his intense stories. On one famous night, he arrived backstage at a Sex Pistols gig in Detroit and asked if he might jam with the English punks. They sent a roadie to meet them with some scissors, telling him he'd need to cut his hair off first. Ted reached into the waistband of his trousers and produced a Magnum 44. Discussions came to an end.

The last time I saw Ted he was in his dressing room at the Hammersmith Apollo. He was raving about the outdoor life, about hunting with a bow and arrow and the paternal pride he felt when his song killed his first deer. We were lectured in the finer points of skinning said animal ("first you make a slit in the anal vent..") and then we bid him farewell.

Ted's views have become even more alarming in recent years, and the guy is threatening to run as Republican Governor of Michigan in 2012. You should be warned.

On Saturday, I was introduced to music industry speed dating. It was a racey little afternoon, linked into the the festival, A Little Solidarity, which I've mentioned before The idea was to take over some space in the Students Union, Queens University, to collect a dozen local industry figures and as many music acts, and to get busy.

Everyone had a five minute session with each other before the whistle blew and the circuit continued. That's not a long time to get into the psyche of a complex artist, to behold the nuances of their music, their graphics, press releases, press shots and schemes for world domination.

We'll, we all smiled and tried to push the positive. A few acts were terribly naive, but the majority arrived with media packs, marketing plans and pre-loaded online communities. They're a lot more aware than previous generations, less isolated and more prepared to work this industry caper.

There was some rousing stuff from Can Cite Scripture, who have already collided with radio guys Rory McConell and Stephen McAuley. We heard burning punk aspirations from Axis Of, and more melodious intent from Eskimos Fall and Kagura.

I'm not sure that anyone fell in love in their alotted five minutes, but the dates were honoured and the quest continues.

'Here Today Gone Tomorrow' was recorded by David Bowie at the Tower Theater, Philadelphia in 1974. He was promoting the 'Diamond Dogs' album, that edgy combination of glam rock and George Orwell, but already his imagination was elsewhere. David was putting on his soul shoes, hiring Luther Vandross as a backing vocalist and prepping his Thin White Duke persona for the 'Young Americans' spree.

This transition was delivered to the public as 'David Live', which included a piercing 'All The Young Dudes' and the ultimate reading of 'Rock And Roll Suicide'. But the highlights couldn't all fit on a double album and so 'Here Today Gone Tomorrow', a cover of an Ohio Players tune, was left out. Happily, it was fetched out for several reissues of the album, and it sure is a delight.

I've had mixed opinions about The Tin Pot Operation. I like my Belfast punk rock as much as anyone else, but the TPO have delivered in in a rather lumpen fashion in the past. Some of their songs have felt more like committee meetings than rock and roll parties. And if you listen back to your Redskins, your SLF, Specials and Public Enemy, you suspect that this agitation business can be fun also.

Happily, the band's new recordings are more potent and are furious in all the right ways. The outstanding track is called 'Sitting There' which seems to rage about a kind of paralysis in our city, away from the shopping centres, the big wheel and the venal parade. There's a mood that gets me thinking of Stiff Little Fingers on 'Inflammable Material', particularly their version of 'Johnny Was'. It's a kind of molten hopelessness, a feeling that ultimately, no-one here gets out alive.

Anyway, Anto and the firm have now delivered a video for said song. I think it matches pretty well with the lyric.

In the old days, rock and roll bands chose their name in the interests of brevity. It had to be something that you could quickly spray on a wall before the cops arrived. That's why Rudi was ideal and SLF was a handy abbreviation. And in the ages before word processing, it was also helpful to have as few letters as possible so that you could make the most of your sheet of Letraset. That's one reason why Therapy? had a question mark after their name. It was left over on the transfer sheet and it was a shame not to use it.

In the new millennium, most of the cool, short names have been used up, and so band names have expanded. Hence the NI act of the moment, And So I Watch You From Afar. You can just about squeeze it on a T-shirt, and a tattoo would surely be a challenge. No matter, because these people are intensely resourceful. They exude belief and focus. They make things happen. And Belfast is currently getting excited at the prospects of their efforts on 'A Little Solidarity'.

It's a chance to mass up the alternative nations of NI, to see a load of bands helping each other out. It starts tonight with Ed Zealous, The Lowly Knights and more. It will roll across Friday and Saturday, introducing bands to industry speed dating and all-ages music. It will be swell and we shall toast ASIWYFA at every opportunity.

I've been a bit shy of reading the reviews of Van Morrison at the Hollywood Bowl last week, playing his 'Astral Weeks' album with some vintage players. It seems like it was a momentous night and that hurts, because I would have dearly loved to have seen it.

I can waffle about the record at tremendous length, and yet my thoughts may have little to do with the original notions of the author. And I'm grateful to Van that he hasn't given away too many of the record's secrets. Because the record lives in our individual imaginations. The lyrics have that great combination of suggestion and mystery. The style and the arrangement of the music aims for a trance-like experience that by-passes the logical and the literal. And it's delivered with so much soul. It wins on every level.

There's a fascinating interview from the LA Times in which Van provides written answers to questions about the album. He talks about the circumstances that birthed the record, and the idea that many of his famous works are not written as a job lot, but stitched together from different chronologies. It's prime fodder for all the Vanoraks, and the debate is already getting intense out there.

I've been working almost every Friday night since 1999. Big deal, I could be digging a ditch instead of playing tunes until midnight in Studio 8a, but it still curtains your social life and demands a degree of alertness that many of the listeners aren't signed up to. Judging by the letters and e-mails, my parish is drinking wine, shooing the kids off to bed, taking a bath or rolling a fat one. Hopefully, not all at the same time.

Sometimes, a degree of self-pity comes into the gig. It's hard when I walk past the various hostelries of Belfast on a Friday at six, and the office workers are settling in for a long night of recreation. But to combat this sentiment, I played a tune by Canadian act, The Cash Brothers. Their big tune was 'Nebraska', about driving through a dark night of the soul listening to the Springsteen tune. But there's also some quality lyricism in 'Night Shift Guru'. It's about the really grim jobs in all-night convenience stores, and it goes like this:
"I'm punching in potato chips
And sugared water and cigarettes and dream magazines
Presidents and condiments and cheese
Squeeze 'em hard and what you get is grease
And I'm punching in anti-freeze and condoms and processed cheese
And me here to please."

'You Love Us' by the Manic Street Preachers was released on May 25, 1991. It was their second release on the Heavenly label and at the time, the band were chiefly ignored, occasionally despised, and adored by a few. They were heroically unstable and that was also part of the charm. While the cynics viewed them as a punk throwback, it was becoming clear that the Manics were part of a broader and more complicated chain of politics, sedition and posturing.

But this was still the era of dance music and baggy acts like Happy Mondays and Flowered Up. Could these apprentice fire-starters from South Wales make a lasting import? Steve Lamacq wasn't sure , but on May 15, they met at Norwich Arts Centre and Richey took and razor blade and carved '4Real' into his arm, just missing an artery.

Everything changed then. And when the band played the Marquee Club just after, we gawped at the guitarist's bandages and wondered how he was going to follow this bewildering gesture. To be honest, many of us reckoned that suicide on stage was a possibility. After all, the band had already declared their intent to set fire to themselves on Top Of The Pops.

Instead, they played 'You Love Us' with all their heart. People were booing, others were elated, the guitars sounded immense and James bellowed like a pit bull. "We gonna burn your deathmask uniforms," he promised.

Tomorrow morning I will be a the Whitla Hall, Belfast, taking part in an event called NI Music: The Way Forward. It's organised by NIMIC and the day will be spattered with appearances from local folk that have done well in the music biz.

Feargal Sharkey will delivere a keynote speech in his new role as poobah royale of UK Music. I'll bet he swears a lot. I'm hoping to see old acquaintances like Paul Brannigan from Kerrang and Alan Ferris of Smalltown America and Jetplane Landing renown, plus Harry from Domino, who seems like a decent chap.

My section includes gabbing with journalists about their favourite songs, productions and live bands. It won't be the hardest gig I've ever done, but at 11am, the brain may not be at maximum potential. Will I be able to talk at length about 'Madame George', The Sabres Of Paradise and 'You Love Us'? Hey, I'll try.

As a young boy, freshly infected with the joys of popular music, I felt it was my duty to study the liner notes of my albums. This may have been a case of mild autism, or simply too much time on my hands, but I majored on Bowie sleeve credits, Faces facts and 'Quadrophenia' ephemera. This, is surmised, was where it all happened.

That's no longer the case, but I still like to browse the CD booklets, looking for some kind of insight into the artist. So I was flicking through the parts of the new Duke Special CD and there it was, a big-up to this writer. There were many others on the list, but still, it was a joy to be associated with a record that's so satisfying and bold. I've been kindly mentioned on fine records by Ash, The Reindeer Section and David Holmes, and it's always good for the heart. The Waterboys album, 'Dream Harder' is dedicated to Mike Scott's mother, his wife and myself. I wasn't aware of this until later, and luckily I gave it a positive review. Anything else might have been embarrassing.

I was also thanked on a record sleeve by a fascinating character called Champion Dough Veitch. Back in 1989, he was the self-styled 'King Of Caledonian Swing' and he even made the cover on the NME. On the notes to his album 'The Original', he mentioned some of the people who'd helped him on his journey. But hilariously, he also had a 'No Thanks To...' section, which settled old scores and brought festering grudges into the open. It was kind of honest, and I liked him better for it.

Friday's playlist seemed to write itself. The Amy LaVere interview was at the core of it, while my pals at Across The Line had gifted me three imperial session tracks from Lisa Hannigan. The Ryan Adams album is better than I had reckoned - even though he throws his records out at a prodigious and erratic pace. The Shakey Hands are from Portland, Oregon and have been compared to The Shins in the past. Their new music is rather excellent.

BBC links

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